I WANT TO TALK ABOUT ALCOHOL
I want to talk about booze and what it’s doing to your body!
Let’s cover 3 things
1. What it does once is slides down your throat (the anatomy)
2. What’s in alcohol these days
3. Should you or shouldn’t you drink it….(the magic question)
Let us paint a story.... you’ve come home from a long day at work…there is a slight breeze outside (not today obviously, but stay with me) and your re-heating your dinner from last night and go to pour a nice glass of red wine to sit al fresco to eat dinner with your spouse while your kids play because they’ve already been fed (can I get an amen?)
You’re sipping your wine and it goes down smooth…..then WHAT????
Alcohol once it enters the mouth travels very quickly to the blood vessels in your mouth and tongue, then once it travels down to the stomach up to 20% of alcohol passes through the stomach and into your bloodstream. Where is your bloodstream? EVERYWHERE
If your stomach is empty it will move quickly down into the intestines. If there is food in the stomach more alcohol will be absorbed into the stomach, this gives enzymes in the stomach more time to breakdown some of the alcohol before most of it moves to the intestines. The remaining 75%-85% of alcohol gets absorbed through the intestines into the bloodstream.
Because it enters the bloodstream it affects all your organ systems. Thus you run the risk of multiple organ system impairments over time and use.
Here is a short list of negative side effects of long term alcohol use (by long term I mean nightly/weekly consumption) This is by no means a comprehensive list and doesn’t cover the minor negative effects we see often at our office. The biggest issue we see at the office with patients is high triglycerides in their blood work analysis effecting their overall health and weight loss goals.
Shrinking brain
Blackouts
Dependence
Hearing damage
Liver damage
Pancreatitis
Behavior changes
Hallucinations
Slurred speech
Cancer
Lung infections
Fatigue
Frequent diarrhea
Infertility
Sexual dysfunction (male and female)
Malnutrition
Diabetes complications
Numbness
Stomach distress
Birth defects (from either male or female with frequent consumption)
Thinning bones
Changes in your coordination
Muscle cramps
Alcohol is a toxic substance by nature, but what we are finding in the way it’s produced is even more harmful to the body. We will focus on the production of wine particularly for this conversation. The gist of wine making is 1. Pick the grapes 2. Crush the grapes 3. Ferment the grapes into wine 4. Age the wine and 5. Bottle the wine. We are running into a problem right away with step #1 pick the grapes…Most grape farms in the US spray their grapes with chemicals containing glyphosates (pronounced gly fo sates). If you did not know Glyphosate is the active ingredient is Monsanto’s roundup weed killer. It just so happens to also be a secret ingredient in beers, wines and even some organic labels. The brand with the highest glyphosate concentration was Sutter Home Merlot at 51.4 parts per billion in a study done of over 20 wine and beer companies. Popular beer brands like Coors light, Miller lite, and Budweiser all contained concentrations above 25ppb. Even though the study that produced these findings stated that the measures where below the EPA risk exposure to this amount. Consumption on a regular basis (2 or more times per week) is not recommended due to the toxicity it poses as being carcinogenic to the body based on 2015 research by the WHO research on cancer. We need to do better with how we harvest our grapes and then filtrate them to produce cleaner wines and other alcoholic beverages.
When you should or shouldn’t drink? Alcohol truly offers very little to the body. Studies through the years have mentioned the benefits of a small glass of wine nightly…it rarely does more good than bad. So with that in mind I am not pro drinking on a regular basis especially when my patients are working on healthier lifestyles, trying to lose weight and manage bodily symptoms that have come up. So can you never drink again? No, you can just not a lot. Alcohol will absolutely wreck your diet or weight loss efforts. If you are trying to lose weight or keep weight off alcohol will absolutely not help you get there and will sabotage your progress. If you are not trying to lose weight or work on something specific such as low thyroid, candida yeast overgrowth or lower your high liver enzymes or cholesterol markers then consuming alcohol occasionally is OK. My patients then always want to know how much is OK?
My suggestions: only consume one unit per event. That is one glass of wine or champagne and that is one beer. Only consume this 3x a month or less. My preferred preferences when you consume alcohol are to be sure it is organic, sulfate low or free, gluten free and limit your amount of hard liquor in general. There are many newer brands that are producing much cleaner wines and beers now that are less toxic to the body, but should still only be consumed in moderation. We suggest these brands to our patients when they are looking for a healthier alternative.
Some healthier alternatives
Wines
https://feedmephoebe.com/best-biodynamic-organic-wines/
Other organic wine resources
Beers
Harvester Brewing IPA : not local
Non-alcoholic Beers
Feel free to ask more questions or comment below on other brands you have found. You can always ask me about this at your next appointment or you can reach me through social media anytime.